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Published: Aug 6, 2009
Category: Fiction
I’ve never quite been persuaded that Malcolm Gladwell is a genius. This is not the common view. Most of what I hear about him suggests that he knows everything. And his ideas --- he’s always right there with the thought that was just about to form in your head. Add the wooly hair and New Yorker affiliation, and you have impeccable marketing for a brainiac.
My dark suspicion is that Gladwell, like Thomas Friedman, offers considerably less than meets the eye. I feel that more strongly after reading his latest New Yorker piece, The Courthouse Ring: Atticus Finch and the limits of Southern liberalism. It’s a re-examination of To Kill a Mockingbird --- and not a flattering one.
Taking on Harper Lee’s one and only novel is not a small thing. This is the book that every ninth grader is forced to read. The movie was nominated for eight Academy awards and won three. The American Film Institute named the movie the best courtroom drama ever made; it voted Atticus Finch America’s #1 film hero.
Over the last half century, the book --- well, the movie, most likely --- has become an American icon. How can you tell? Politicians love it. Ask a Presidential candidate for a favorite book, and the answer is either “Atlas Shrugged” (for Republicans) or “To Kill a Mockingbird” (for Others).
That choice is the reason why I’d love to ask a question in a Town Hall during a Presidential campaign: “You say you admire Atticus Finch. You know, of course, that he took on the legal defense of an African-American, knowing he could not prevail in court. So let me ask you --- when was the last time you took on a cause knowing you couldn’t win, just because it was the right thing to do?”
I imagine politicians going totally silent.
An acquittal was impossible --- for me, that’s the central point of the novel. It’s not for Gladwell. His attack gives Finch points for defending Tom Robinson, then takes them away because he’s no civil-rights hero. That is, when Tom is convicted, Finch is not “brimming with rage at the unjust verdict.” Instead, he’s “looking for racial salvation through hearts and minds” --- an approach that's “about accommodation, not reform.”
Gladwell’s conclusion: “A book that we thought instructed us about the world tells us, instead, about the limitations of Jim Crow liberalism in Maycomb, Alabama.”
I think not.
Gladwell was born in Great Britain in 1963, then raised and educated in Canada. “To Kill a Mockingbird”, published in 1960, describes the mood of the South in the 1930s. All of this puts Gladwell at a considerable disadvantage when he attempts to place Atticus Finch in his time and place.
The fact is, Finch shows considerable courage simply by taking on Tom Robinson’s case. And Harper Lee correctly tamped down Finch's reaction to the verdict --- he had to go on living in this small Southern town.
I’ve lived in the South. And I’ve reported a number of stories there. I find the people friendly and direct, and, on a personal level, perhaps a bit more hospitable and honest than the media-savvy residents of my sophisticated city. On a one-on-one basis, I’ve seen relationships that suggest race relations may be more cordial in the South than in the North.
But getting justice in court? In 1981, an 18-year-old African American named Michael Donald went out for a pack of cigarettes in Mobile, Alabama. He was intercepted by some Klansmen, beaten and lynched. No shortage of suspects. No absence of evidence. And yet there were no indictments.
Who broke the case? Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center. He filed unprecedented civil suits against the killers, won large judgments and, in essence, bankrupted that part of the Klan.
In 1987, I went to Alabama to profile Dees and the victim’s mother, Beulah Mae Donald, for the New York Times Magazine. I didn’t fail to notice the Israeli-level security at the SPLC, or the heaviness of Dees’ car doors, or the rifle under the passenger’s seat. And I couldn’t miss the gratitude that Mrs. Donald felt for a lawyer who had put his safety on the line in order to get justice for her son.
Okay, that’s just one case. And maybe there was something nasty about the air in Mobile. But as I watch the rabble-rousing in town halls that passes for “debate” on national health care this summer, I find Gladwell’s expectations for Atticus Finch more than a little harsh.
There’s something to be said for doing what you can, in the place where you are. There’s something to the notion that if you can push yourself to see things as your opponent does, you just might get him to try the world from your point-of-view. And, in a time of noise and stupidly, there’s a lot that can be said for Atticus Finch.
You think you know “To Kill a Mockingbird’? Maybe you do. But maybe this would be an excellent summer to re-read it.
To buy “To Kill a Mockingbird” from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy the audio CD of “To Kill a Mockingbird” from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy the DVD of the film of “To Kill a Mockingbird” from Amazon.com, click here.